The product of wood charcoal by the carbonization of wood is an age old process capable of producing a product having a wide range of utilities, e.g. for metallurgical reduction purposes, adsorbent preparation purposes and even household use, e.g. for picnicking and barbecuing.
The carbonization of the wood can be effected in a static mass or in a moving bed system.
By and large, however, conventional moving bed systems have been neither economical nor environmentally sound and tended to give rise to vapors and gases which were environmental pollutants and tended to require auxiliary energy sources or to consume uneconomical quantities of the wood as fuel.